education for democracy

While our aims change with situations, all educators, it can be argued,
share a larger purpose - to foster democracy. But what does this mean? How might
schools look? What is the place of informal education?

One
of the major tasks that education must perform in a democratic society, Kelly
(1995: 101) argues, ‘is the proper preparation of young citizens for the roles
and responsibilities they must be ready to take on when they reach maturity’.
Others put the case that this is the aim of education:

We can conclude that ‘political education’ – the cultivation
of the virtues, knowledge and skills necessary for political participation - has
moral primacy over other purposes of public education in a democratic society.
Political education prepares citizens to participate in consciously reproducing
their society, and conscious social reproduction is the ideal not only of
democratic education but also of democratic politics. (Gutmann 1987: 287)

For many of the ancient Greeks such participation was a good
in itself. Their term for the private individual was idiotes (idiot).
Such a person was literally a fool as she or he was not interested in public
affairs. This grew out in part out of a recognition that humans are social
beings. We are what we are because of our interactions with others. We achieve
what we do because we benefit from their work. Thus, if we are all to flourish
then we must:

Recognize that we share many common interests.

Commit ourselves to consider those interests (and hence the needs of others)
when looking to our own.

Actively engage with, and seek to strengthen, those situations and movements
that embody democratic values and draw people together. (Jeffs and Smith 1999:
38)

In this view, we do not simply add
together individuals and get society. People's lives are woven together, we
share in a common life. As Dewey (1916: 87) saw it, ‘A democracy is more than a
form of government: it is primarily a mode of associated living, a conjoint
communicated experience’.

Beyond being a good in itself, we can also make a case for
democracy on instrumental grounds – on the goods that flow from it. In
particular, we can focus on freedoms, rights and material benefits
it affords (Dahl 1998: 44-61) – and upon the
social capital
it generates. These come in significant part through the educative and welfare
impact of the associational
life, relationships and networks linked to it.

We also need to recognize that it isn’t just children and the
young who need preparing for political participation. Political education is
something that is necessary throughout life. It isn’t just that many people miss
out on a proper political education in their younger years - situations change,
new understandings are generated, and it is necessary to explore what these
might mean. In this respect the rather narrow concern with skilling that runs
through a lot of recent talk of
lifelong learning and the
learning society is rather sad.

The meaning of democracy and the meaning of education

Just how we are to approach democracy is a matter of
considerable debate. Different understandings imply contrasting educational
practices. Carr and Hartnett (1996: 43-45) provide us with a useful illustration
in this respect. They contrast a ‘classical’ conception of democracy (in which
democracy is seen as a form of popular power) and a ‘contemporary’ conception
where democracy is viewed as a representative system of political
decision-making.

Grounded in a way of life in which all can develop their
qualities and capacities. It envisages a society that itself is intrinsically
educative and in which political socialization is a distinctively educative
process. Democracy is a moral ideal requiring expanding opportunities for direct
participation.

Results from, and reflects, the political requirements of a
modern market economy. Democracy is a way of choosing political leaders
involving, for example, regular elections, representative government and an
independent judiciary.

The primary aim of education

To initiate individuals into the values, attitudes and
modes of behaviour appropriate to active participation in democratic
institutions.

To offer a minority an education appropriate to future
political leaders; the majority an education fitted to their primary social role
as producers, workers and consumers.

Curriculum content

There is a focus on liberal education, a curriculum which
fosters forms of critical and explanatory knowledge that allow people to
interrogate social norms and to reflect critically on dominant institutions and
practices.

Mass education will focus on the world of work and upon
those attitudes and skills, and that knowledge that have some market value.

Typical educational processes

Participatory practices that cultivate the skills and
attitudes that democratic deliberation require.

Pedagogical relationships will tend to be authoritarian and
competition will, as in society generally, play an essential role.

School organization

Schools are viewed as communities in which the problems of
communal life are resolved through collective deliberation and a shared concern
for the common good.

Schools are organized around a pyramidal structure with the
head at its apex.

A model such as this involve caricatures but the contrasts
drawn can help us to approach questions around the direction and purposes of
education – and its relation to democratic practices. To some extent the
distinctions mirror other familiar dichotomies e.g. between
andragogy and pedagogy, and ‘romantic’ and ‘classical’ forms of education
(Lawton 1975 – although his ‘classical’ position looks more like the
contemporary approach above). Indeed, there is some cross-over (not unexpected
as someone like Rousseau has been
associated to the so-called romantic position and can be linked to many of the
concerns associated with direct democracy). However, the starting point and aim
of education in these forms does take us along a somewhat different path.

As well as curriculum content, these contrasting models also
involve some very different ideas as to how the
curriculum is made. The focus on deliberation and practical wisdom in the
classical model will tend to link to process and praxis approaches
to curriculum. The concern with skilling in the contemporary model will lead
people toward more outcome-focused models.

We can also link these models to debates around the meaning of
community. The classical model may well link to appreciations that emphasize
personal networks and relationships, association and communion; the contemporary
model to a view of community as place (territory) and as marketized networks.

John Dewey and education for democracy

In terms of the development of thinking about education for
democracy in the twentieth century, it is the figure of
John Dewey that towers above all. His is the most significant (certainly the
best read) contribution to thinking about education and democracy. He approached
education as part of a broader project that encompassed an exploration of the
nature of experience, of knowledge, of society, and of ethics. As such, he
offers us ‘the ideal bridge from theories of knowledge, to democratic theory and
onwards to education theory’ (Kelly 1995: 87). However, consideration of his
educational thinking has tended to be isolated from his social and political
philosophy (Carr and Hartnett 1996: 54) – so it is with his conception of
democracy that we begin.

On democracy. Dewey recognized that many of the then current
critiques of democracy, especially with regard to electorate’s lack of
knowledge, and the distance between the ideals of the classical model and the
reality of government had considerable merit. As Ryan (1995: 25) put it:

[T]he problem was to make democracy in practice what it had
the potential of being: not just as a political system in which governments
elected by majority vote made such decisions as they could, but a society
permeated by a certain kind of character, by mutual regard of all citizens for
all other citizens, and by an ambition to make society both a greater unity and
one that reflected the full diversity of its members’ talents and aptitudes.

Dewey argued for the revitalization of public democratic life.
Like Habermas in later times, he placed a great emphasis upon the role of
communication in this. ‘Communication is the process of sharing experience till
it becomes a social possession’ (Dewey 1916: 9). Through conversation about
individual and group wishes, needs and prospective actions, it is possible to
discover common interests and to explore the consequences of possible actions.
‘This is what generates “social consciousness” or “general will” and creates the
ability to act on collective goals. (Sehr 1997: 58). The process of deliberation
and communication over collective goals is what Dewey (1927) viewed as a
democratic public.

The development of democracy was an expansion of sociability.
The democratic community was in effect the community that best realized the very
nature of sociability. Moral growth this involved the acquisition of a capacity
for communal life as well as personal fulfillment; we become more fully who we
are as we become more able to offer ourselves to others. (Ryan 1998 :407)

A key feature of Dewey’s argument was his concern for ‘social
intelligence’ (or social consciousness). Through its cultivation human beings
began to develop ‘the capacity collectively to enlarge their own freedom and to
create a more desirable form of social life’ (Carr and Hartnett 1996: 59).

Education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in
the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the
basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social
reconstruction.

Education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of
experience; that the process and the goal of education are one and the same
thing.

This conception has due regard for both the individualistic
and socialistic ideals. It is duly individual because it recognizes the
formation of a certain character as the only genuine basis of right living. It
is socialistic because it recognizes that this right character is not to be
formed by merely individual precept, example or exhortation, but rather by the
influence of a certain form of institutional or community life upon the
individual and that the social organism through the school, may determine
ethical results.

If we follow this line of thinking
through we can see that people learn democracy by being members of a group or
community that acts democratically. In other words, it is through communication
and participating in the process of deliberation that we learn to view ourselves
as social beings with a concern for the common good, and responsibilities to
others. As Dewey (1916: 6) put it, ‘the very process of living together
educates’.

John Dewey on ‘the democratic conception in education

Since education is a social process, and there are many
kinds of societies, a criterion for educational criticism and construction
implies a particular social ideal. The two points selected by which to
measure the worth of a form of social life are the extent in which the interests
of a group are shared by its members, and the fullness and freedom with which it
interacts with other groups. An undesirable society, in other words, is one
which internally and externally sets up barriers to free intercourse and
communication of experience. A society which makes provision for participation
in its good of all its members on equal terms and which secures flexible
readjustment of its institutions through the interaction of the different forms
of associated life is in so far democratic. Such a society must have a type of
education which gives individuals a personal interest in social relationships
and control, and the habits of the mind which secure social changes without
introducing disorder.

Dewey 1916: 99

This has profound implications for the way we approach
schooling (or indeed any other form of education). The school must be ‘primarily
a mode of associated living, a conjoint communicated experience’ (Dewey 1916:
87). Dewey argued that much of education failed because it neglected the
fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life.

It conceives that school as a place where certain information
is to be given, where certain lessons are to be learned, or where certain habits
are to be formed. The value of these is conceived as lying largely in the remote
future, the child must do these things for the sake of something else he is to
do; they are mere preparations. As a result they do not become part of the life
experience of the child and so are not truly educative. (Dewey 1897, reproduced
in Dewey 1940: 8)

Conceiving the school as a community in which communication
and deliberation flourishes inevitably leads us to consider the nature of
relationships between student and student, students and teachers, and teacher
and teacher. As Winch and Gingell (1999) note, if schools exist to promote
democratic values it would appear that they need to remove authoritarian
relationships. ‘Education for democracy thus becomes education freed from
authoritarian relationships’ (op cit).

A.S. Neill and participative education

Dewey was writing as a philosopher rather than drawing upon
sustained experience as a practicing educator. It is helpful to turn to
another significant twentieth century educator
A. S. Neill (1883 – 1973). As Jean-François Saffange (1994) notes, when he
died at the age of 90 he had spent most of his life in the classroom – as a
pupil, pupil-teacher, teacher and headmaster. One of his most significant
contributions to educational thinking was to bring insights from
psychoanalytical traditions into education. He initially looked to Freud, but
was later associated with Wilhelm Reich. However, educationally it was the work
of Homer Lane that provided him a model of practice.

Homer Lane (1875-1925)
was Superintendent of the Little Commonwealth, a co-educational community in
Dorset run for children and young people ranging from a few months to 19 years.
Those over 13 years old were there because they were categorize as delinquent.
An American by birth, he had early experience as an educator at the George
Junior Republic. At the Little Commonwealth from 1913 to 1918 (at Evershot,
Dorset) he pioneered what later we came to know as ‘group therapy’ and ‘shared
responsibility’. His educational approach involved ‘the path of freedom instead
of imposed authority, of self-expression instead of a pouring-in of knowledge,
of evoking and exploiting the child’s natural sense of wonder and curiosity
instead of a repetitious hammering home of dull facts’ (Wills 1964: 20).
Unfortunately, his work in Dorset came to a rather abrupt end after two of the
young female ‘citizens’ claimed that Lane ‘had immoral relations with them’
(Wills 1964: 163). As well as having an interest in offenders and expressive
forms of education, Lane also worked as a psychotherapist (this also brought him
into legal trouble).

A. S. Neill on Summerhill

What is Summerhill like? Well, for one thing, lessons are
optional. Children can go to them or stay away from them – for years if they
want to. There is a timetable – but only for the teachers.

The children have classes usually according to their age,
but sometimes according to their interests. We have no new methods of teaching,
because we do not consider that teaching in itself matters very much. Whether a
school has or has not a special method for teaching long division is of no
significance, for long division is of no importance except to those who want
to learn it. And the child who wants to learn long division will
learn it no matter how it is taught….

Strangers to this idea of freedom will be wondering what
sort of madhouse it is where children play all day if they want to. Many an
adult says, ‘If I had been to a school like that, I’d never have done a thing’.
Others say, ‘Such children will feel themselves heavily handicapped when they
have to compete against children who have been made to learn….

My staff and I have a hearty hatred of all examinations. To
us, the university exams are an anathema. But we cannot refuse to teach children
the required subjects. Obviously as long as the exams are in existence, they are
our master….

Summerhill is possibly the happiest school in the world. We
have no truants and seldom a case of homesickness. We very rarely have fights… I
seldom hear a child cry, because children who are free have much less hate to
express than children who are downtrodden. Hate breeds hate, and love breeds
love. Love means approving of children, and that is essential in any school. You
can’t be on the side of children if you punish them and storm at them.
Summerhill is a school in which the child knows he is approved of.

A. S. Neill 1968:
20-23

A. S. Neill was both impressed by the Little Commonwealth and
with his experience of psychotherapy under Lane. He described him as ‘the most
influential factor in my life’ (Neill 1972: 135). Summerhill, the school with
which Neill is forever associated was founded by him in 1924. As can be seen
from the extract, lessons were optional, students can play if they want, do
handicrafts, hang about. Afternoons were completely free for everyone. At five
various activities began for those that want to take part. The evenings were
also used for various entertainments. If it had not been for the threat of the
school being closed by the authorities, Saffange (1994: 219) comments, Neill
would have placed no ban on sexual relations.

One of the innovations that Neill took from the Little
Commonwealth, was the general meeting in which the vote of staff had no greater
weight than that of students.

Summerhill is a self-governing school, democratic in form.
Everything connected with social, or group life, including punishment for social
offences, is settled by vote at the Saturday night General School Meeting.

Each member of the teaching staff and each child, regardless
of his age, has one vote. My vote carries the same weight as that of a
seven-year-old….

Summerhill self-government has no bureaucracy. There is a
different chairman at each meeting, appointed by the previous chairman, and the
secretary’s job is voluntary. Bedtime officers are seldom in office for more
than a few weeks.

Our democracy makes laws – good ones too…. The success of the
meeting depends largely on whether the chairman is weak or strong, for to keep
order among 45 vigorous children is no easy task. The chairman has power to fine
noisy citizens. Under a weak chairman, the fines are much too frequent. (Neill
1968: 54)

The School was small enough for everyone to attend if they
wished. Some matters of school policy were not discussed by the General Meeting
e.g. bedroom arrangements, payment of school bills, and the appointment and
dismissal of teachers. However, ‘the regulation of bullying, of cases of
stealing, of inconsiderate behaviour’ did come under the care of the Meeting
(Stewart 1968: 296). As might be expected the same subjects tend to reappear –
behaviour at bed-time and overnight; taking and interfering with private
property; damage (ibid: 297). Neill (1968: 59) claims that self-government
works. ‘You cannot have freedom unless children feel completely free to govern
their own social life. Where there is a boss, there is no real freedom’.

This approach to democratic education has the virtue of
looking to the school as a community, and of looking to the possibilities of
associationalism. Dewey, would no doubt argue that it entails a retreat from
the curricula responsibilities of the educator. The social background of the
students and the concerns of their parents, this was after all a fee-paying
school that people chose, may well have allowed some freedom around study
that could not reproduced in other settings. It may well also be that the
approach’s success depends upon having someone like Neill at its heart – a less
spirited and able educator would not provide the presence and strength needed to
help ‘contain’ the situation and to stimulate experiment. (Much as
Buber argues that communities need a ‘builder’ at their heart). But, as
Stewart (1968: 299) suggests, it would have been very difficult to get the
evidence needed to assess the effect and effectiveness of a Summerhill education
(and even more difficult to compare it with other schools). However, there is no
doubting that Neill was able to create a place where students felt cared for and
respected. He also in his own way, and despite himself, ‘rehabilitated the
educator, that controversial character on the educational scene, which the
fierce individualism of our time has struck out of the educational treatises, as
if needed to be proved that educational success depends largely on the
personality of the teachers, their enthusiasm and commitment.

... to
be added to.

Further reading and references

Carr,
W. and Hartnett, A. (1996) Education and the Struggle for Democracy. The
politics of educational ideas, Buckingham: Open University Press. 233 + xii
pages. Useful collection of essays that detail developments in England and
Wales. Includes a very helpful chapter on democratic theory and democratic
education.

Follett, M. P. (1923) The New State. Group
organization the solution of popular government, New York: Longmans, Green
and Co. 373 + xxix pages. Influential exploration of 'the group principle',
traditional democracy and group organization. The appendix 'training for the new
democracy' is a classic statement of community education ideas. Follett was
involved in the development of community centers (schools) around Boston - and
her resulting proposals and ideas were a significant influence on the pioneers
of the community centre movement in the UK.

Giroux, H. A. (1989) Schooling for Democracy. Critical pedagogy in the modern
age, New York: Routledge. Very helpful collection of essays that examine
schooling, citizenship and the struggle for democracy.

Gutmann, A. (1987) Democratic Education, Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press. 321 + xii pages. Constructs a theory of
education that places the fostering of democracy at its core. Chapters examine
the nature of the state; the purposes of primary education; democratic
participation; limits of democratic authority; extramural education; educating
adults; and the primacy of political education. Pretty much the current liberal
standard treatment of the subject.

Held, D. (1995) Democracy and the Global Order. From the
modern sate to cosmopolitan governance, Cambridge: Polity. 324 + xii pages.
The first, introductory, section provides an overview of different models of
democracy. Part two looks to the formation and displacement of the modern state.
Part three examines the 'foundations of democracy'; and the final part attempts
a 'reconstruction' of democracy around the notion of a cosmopolitan order. See
also Held's (1987) heplful student text, Models of Democracy, Ca
mbridge: Polity.

Hernández, A. (1997) Pedagogy,
Democracy and Feminism. Rethinking the public sphere, New York: SUNY Press.
123 + xiii pages. ISBN 0-7914-3170-3. £10.00. Hernández constructs a 'feminist
pedagogy of difference' for cultural workers. She draws upon her experience with
the Argentine Mother's Movement to explore the place of critical pedagogy in the
struggle for democracy. Chapters explore the remapping of pedagogical
boundaries; informing pedagogical practices (democracy and the language of the
public); inhabiting a split (feminism, counterpublic spheres, and the
problematic of the private-public); recreating counterpublic spheres; and taking
a position within discourse.

Kelly, A. V. (1995) Education and Democracy. Principles and
practices, London: Paul Chapman. 202 +xviii pages. Covers some of the same
ground as Gutmann but from a later English perspective (e.g. with some
consideration of post modernism etc.). The first part of the book examines the
fundamental pri nciples of democratic living; part two, democracy and the
problem of knowledge; and part three, democracy and education. Clear and
committed treatment.

Lakoff, S. (1996) Democracy. History, theory, practice,
Boulder, Colarado: Westview Press. 388 pages. Substantial and well written
introduction to 'democracy'. The opening section examines the current appeal of
the idea, and democracy as the quest for autonomy. Section two runs through the
history with discussions of Athenian democracy (communalism); Roman and later
republicanism (pluralism); liberal democracy (individual autonomy) and modern
autocracy. The third, 'theory' section looks at modern notions of democracy; the
individual and the group, and federalism. Section four, 'practice' examines
democratization, autonomy against itself and democracy and world peace.

Nemerowicz, G. and Rosi, E. (1997) Education for
Leadership and Social Responsibility, London: Falmer Press. 166 + xiv
pages.Part one of the book looks at different theoretical approaches to
constructing an education for inclusive leadership and social repsonsibility.
The writers draw from diverse sources here - learning about leadership from
children, the world of work, and artists. Part two explores the practice of
building educational communities for leadership and social responsibility. Here
there is a focus on the campus. Chapters deal with planning and implementing
programmes; teachers as leaders; curriculum and co-curriculum; research,
assessment and dissemination; and building collaborative communities.The book is
the outcome of a fairly large study.

Putnam, R. D. (1999)
Bowling Alone. The collapse and revival of American community, New York:
Simon and Schuster. 540 pages. Groundbreaking book that marshals evidence from
an array of empirical and theoretical sources. Putnam argues there has been a
decline in 'social capital' in the USA. He charts a drop in associational
activity and a growing distance from neighbours, friends and family. Crucially
he explores some of the possibilities that exist for rebuilding social capital.
A modern classic.

Sehr, D. T. (1997) Education
for Public Policy, New York: SUNY Press. 195 + x pages. ISBN 0-7914-3168-1.
This book explores two competing traditions of American democracy and
citizenship: a dominant, privately-oriented citizenship tradition and an
alternative tradition of public citizenship. David Sehr then goes on to explore
how the second tradition can be promoted within schooling (in case material from
two democratic alternative urban high schools.